OKA GREEN SLOPE 

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-^5 MMY ROBBRTINE STOKE S 

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ON A GREEN SLOPE 



Poems by 



MARY ROBERTINE STOKES 




RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
BOSTON 



Copyright, 1913, by Mary Robertine Stokes 
All rights reserved 



753^37 



"On a Green Slope" and "Arbutus" 
are used through the kind permission 
of the editor of "Book News." 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



/<$~o 



©CLA351924 

14 A * 



TO MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

On a Green Slope 9 

Maurice Thompson 10 

Daphnis and Menalcas 11 

An Orchard Slope 12 

When Wood and Field 13 

Joy of the Open 14 

The Sunny Pasture 15 

A Summer Day 16 

The Brook 17 

To a Robin Singing at Noon 18 

The First of April 19 

Song 20 

Mid-November Day 21 

Song Sparrow 23 

Along the Road 24 

Over Kent's Fallow Fields 26 

Song 27 

Summer Evening 28 

When Skies are Full of Opaline Haze 19 

These Dear Old Fields of Kent 30 

The Billow 31 

To Life 32 

A Song of the Wind 33 

Earth-Bound 34 

Guardian Angels 36 

Arbutus 37 

The Bluebird's Song 38 

Pain 39 

Yule Thought 40 

A Winter View 41 



Echo 42 

Summer Noon 43 

The Wide Fields Thrill 44 

Ah! Christ, Could Life but See 45 

On Finding a Moccasin Flower in the Pine- 
wood 46 

Villanelle of 'Spring 47 

Convolvulus 48 

Heart's Field 49 

Wells 50 

Violets 51 

Dreams 52 

Solitude 53 

The Lapidary 54 



To seek a little and enjoy it much, 

Ah! this were wealth beyond a Midas Touch, 

The bee within the blossom of a weed 

Can sip the very cup of Gannymede." 



ON A GREEN SLOPE 

It is as if I trod sweet Sicily 
This emerald slope beside the sapphire bay, 
Where brown herds browse and white sheep nib- 
bling stray; 
Where clover blooms arrest the wandering bees, 
And piped song comes out from tilting trees 
When, Daphnis-like, the wind a lyric frees. 



MAURICE THOMPSON 

(In Memoriam) 

Nature in requiem winds and pine-harp's woe 
Laments the lover of her hermit mood; 
She pledged him with the gift of freedomhood 
And led him where her harbored sweets o'erflow. 
With bow half-drawn and pulsing heart aglow, 
He paced the mazes of the untrod wood, 
Harked the wild notes of buried solitude 
And knew the art of centuries ago. 

He leaned o'er pools where misty dreamlights 

hung, 
And fingered all the wandering, tenuous strings 
Of green earth's shy and subtle palpitings; 
Re-sung the lays that thicket lyrists sung, 
Found the white way to paradised delight, 
Marking the path with feathered arrow flight. 



10 



DAPHNIS AND MENALCAS 

Met on a range of fruited trees 

Two rival pipers stand, 

The Mocker gray, a champion bold, 

A Thrush clear-eyed and tanned, 

Their match of song doth leap and thrill 

With ardor, challenged-fanned. 



11 



AN ORCHARD SLOPE 

An orchard slope, verdured in April green, 
Where gnarled old apple trees flower-laden lean; 
A slender peach tree with pink bloom ablaze, 
And suntouched barns breaking through sapphire 

haze 
That blurs the harshness of yon furrowed hill, 
(The blue haze hath a way of softening ill.) 
High in the tree a robin's Marsian flute 
And old dreams stirring at the heart's deep root. 

Old dreams, old dreams, blue haze and opal bloom, 
These charm today and mist the human doom: 
Far down the slope I see the flowers go free, 
The mold's strong locks yield to the West wind's 

key; 
Across the field again light lyrics ring — 
My heart gives thanks for April green and Spring. 



u 



WHEN WOOD AND FIELD— 

When wood and field are filled with fragrant herbs, 
And yellow bees above white clover croon; 
When slender stems sway in the hazy noon 
And on the land is all the charm of June — 
Then on the hills, tending a flock of dreams, 
I know all sweets that olden shepherds knew 
In pastures deep beneath the curving blue; 
Go anise-crowned with gray care out of view, 
Loiter in paths that scent and song pursue. 



13 



JOY OF THE OPEN 

O that idle hour with the world debarred, 
On the open way with butterflies starred! 
In the rifts of red top bees were rife, 
We tasted too o' the sweets o' life; 
Drank from a sparrow's spring of song 
That bubbled where bent grass was long; 
Of precious blooms we clasped full hands, 
Sundrops, wild rose, hedge bindweed strands. 
The silver swallows circled fleet, 
Fresh winds, Etesian winds did sweep 
Over the timothy, up the wheat — 
We plunged in emerald waves heart-deep, 
And down day's slope there flowed for us 
The honey of Mt. Hymettus. 



14 



THE SUNNY PASTURE 

When morning-glory blooms are folded tight, 
Round chicory stalks is furled each azure flag, 
High with song's zest, here merry thousands lag 
To chant and chime the alchemic power of light; 
Butterfly wings like golden batons beat, 
Timing the score for minstrel myriads hid, 
Beetle's oboe, cymbals of katydid 
Sound through the breeze's leafy laughter sweet. 
A lark drops in and fills a moment's hush 
With one clear note. Wild into deeper grass 
With trembling trample and with rasping rush 
Go frighted grasshoppers fleeing as I pass, 
Out above all the cicada's violin — 
Loitering, I love it in the idle din ! 



15 



A SUMMER DAY 

Light haze on creek and river, golden noon on the 
bar, 

Sun on warm waters sparkling, star after star; 

Into the ears a crooning, a low silvery sound 

Where winged waves come playing along the 
sandy ground; 

I've a sense of delight about me, a joy in line and 
hue — 

The curve of yellow shore and rhythmic sweep of 
blue. 

Out of the sands the wild bean, with seed pods 
summer-ripe, 

Along the edge of a tide-pool there runs a slender 
snipe; 

About the snagged driftwood the hum of a fellow- 
like bee, 

And just overhead the calling, the calling of fleet 
kildee: 

No vain and eager reaching, no wonder of any- 
thing, 

Only idle alertness to what blue ripples sing. 



16 



THE BROOK 

(In April) 

Between these banks of sloping green 

Where are waters bright with pebbles met, 

Sweet, gleeful music's heard harp-set 

To unisons unguessed; 

So like some rippling melody, 

Of lip and flute confessed, 

When Life and Laughter meet amain 

The pathway of old dream again. 



17 



TO A ROBIN SINGING AT NOON 

High in the emerald garden of a tree 
Enchanting notes the summer silence break, 
Wild haunting strains sung for thy loved mate's 

sake; 
Wild strains and exquisite, from memory 
Of shared delights that are of field and lea, 
Spun gold that sunshine through the mist will 

make, 
The sparkling hues dew on the rose will take, 
The low, rich lyric of a passing bee. 

So I do think when ecstasies divine, 
Flower wefts that wakefulness or sleep doth spin 
Bitter and sweet that quivering sense entwine; 
Moods to set tinkling mirth's gay mandolin, 
Thrilled wistful man, listening, intense, apart, 
'Twas you, you woke the first song in his heart ! 



18 



THE FIRST OF APRIL 

Outside my window, deep and low, 
The flurried rain silverly gleams, 
And violets blue already blow 
Around the purlieus of my dreams. 

A gust of song about the eaves, 
O'er treetops gray a flare of leaves, 
And soon bewintered sense will be 
Flower-charmed in Spring's periphery. 



19 



SONG 

My heart is for Kent's long hill slopes 
When the clover's coming down, 

For her roads full of wild roses 
That lead far out from town. 

Out on the long green leagues 

Where the clover blooms have scope, 

A light mist flying over 

And its Hey ! for heart and hope. 

When the pulse of exulting June 

Beats fast in the ether blue, 
A dull gray world's made over 

And your own pulse beating too! 

For miles and miles to be wending, 
Then the halting beneath the trees, 

Where the dancing leaves are piping 
Their gleeful melodies. 

There's a brown bird on the fireweed 
And its light song sprays the air, 

O dream in the heart is a song-bird 
That eases life of care. 

Then it's haste to be up and over 

Green hills that are sloping down, 
On white roads that run through sweet 
clover 
To wend far out from town. 
20 



MID-NOVEMBER DAY 

The summer's embers still unquenched, 
Were stirred by morning's hand 

In woodland brasiers wide and deep, 
And warmed the open land. 

We cast in heart-free haste away 

The clasping cares that press, 
The autumn air was breath of balm, 

The creek was silentness. 

Down from the haze encircled dome 
Light streamed with opaline glow, 

Laving the idle boats, the fykes, 
The cabins gray and low. 

Beyond the bar a soft sail hung 

White in the wind's release, 
Was it a sign, a truce to moil, 

The oriflamme of peace? 

For through the fallow field of day 

No furrowing noise did gride, 
And Bedioun birds stayed southward flight 

On ether uplands wide. 

Moveless we watched in wood and air 

The beauty born for blight, 
Till sense grew in the stillness, sad, 

And wide-eyed in the light. 



21 



Across the light a long, black scar, 
And o'er the pale chrome bar 

Dark flocks flown in came crowding fast 
Where low green cedars are. 

Upon no sound some rent gold leaves 

A gust of grief did fling, 
A line of wild geese, far in the sky, 

Seemed winter heralding. 



SONG SPARROW 

The late song sparrow's a toiler brown 

Who blithely plods along, 
Sprinkling the pastures Autumn dried 

With freshening showers of song. 



ALONG THE ROAD 

I journey with the morning, hand in hand, 
The charm of mist makes lovlier the land; 

The white road runs wild garden banks between 
Far, far across the acres rich and green. 

With bended head I bathe wide eyes in dew, 
This tincture makes the worn old world seem new. 

I hold the grass and strengthen in its glee 
And join it in its saltant ecstasy, 

And praise it for the power its cheer doth hold, 
Like love in life to hide the must and mold. 

The roses wild are here in vagrant ease, 

All dawn-suffused and flushed with imageries; 

Right rudely seems the milkweed's stalk upthrust, 
Like hand that pushes bold through custom's 
crust. 

Just by the fence and there beyond the trees, 
The daisies go in genial companies. 

I mark the roadside's fragile denizen — 
The ruby-hearted flower of moth mullein. 



24 



Brave in the dust whose home should be the lea. 
Smiles the fair face of sapphire chicory. 

The morn is sweet, and discontent and ill 
Are dark shapes fading on the emerald hill. 



25 



OVER KENT'S FALLOW FIELDS. 

Over Kent's fallow fields 
Wandering the clover goes, 

And the perfume borne on the breeze 
Is sweeter than scent of the rose. 

O, sweeter than scent of the rose 
Who would not tarry and dream? 

Marsh blackbirds down in the grass 
Sing of the meadow stream. 

Red-berried vines dew-wet, 
The grace of blue in the sky, 

Sun where the sheaves are set, 
Shade where the white flocks lie, 

Mirth and delight that flee, 
Here is an end to the quest, 

Brown lark, and robin, and bee, 
Light song, and laughter, and rest. 



SONG 

Song is a crystal mint 

For the coinage of golden mirth, 
Where nuggets of laughter arc brought 

From all the veins of birth. 



27 



SUMMER EVENING 

Pale purple light of dying day 

Flushes the open lane, 
As up the narrow ivory way 

The herd goes home again. 

The honey sweet of new cut hay 

Upon the air is cast, 
The cattle's perfumed breath out-blows 

As home they hurry past. 



28 



WHEN SKIES ARE FULL OF OPALINE 
HAZE 

When skies are full of opaline haze 

And breezes blow the blue-green oats, 
When laborers singing till the maize 

From morn to eve, and all bird throats 

Are slender Panic pipes become; 

When cows bite lawns where sun is laid, 
And fleecy flocks lie down where some 

Old tree doth pitch a tent of shade, 

An idle sense, far straying, bids 

A glimpse of those sweet times sylvan 

W T hen shepherd life looked out 'neath lids 
Of peace on slopes Sicilian. 

In mellow June beneath the trees, 
When song of leaf and wind are blent, 

Deep in the grass, at shaded ease, 
I'm charmed from all lament. 



29 



THESE DEAR OLD FIELDS OF KENT 

These dear old fields of Kent, how sweet they 

seem 
In the long rose days when the real is dream; 

The tillage sloping east, the pasture reaching 

north, 
The open lanes between, green lanes that bid you 

forth. 

The silver on the leaves, the clover in the mist, 
The light Acadian troll of winging lutanist; 

Along an orchard's path the fireweed's orange 

flare, 
Upon a mood's gloom the illume of turquoise air. 

What reverie of blossoms mid the grass and grain, 
Yarrow, daisies, primrose and blue and white 
vervain; 

And oh ! the nameless flowers that bloom and blow 

away, 
The new stubble's gold, attar of heaped hay. 

These dear old fields of Kent, how sweet they 

seem 
In the long rose days when the real is dream ; 

Far wafted scent and sound, pure essences and 

free, 
Distilled in the heart make song's nectary. 

30 



THE BILLOW 

Far out at sea, far from the golden sand, 
Thou risest lightly from the emerald tide 
With haste of royal wave; doth song abide 
In thy breast too, that thou woulds't reach the 

land? 
Behold ! thou art gone ere half the space is spanned : 
What was thy urge across the mad profound? 
Woulds't plumb the poignant potency of sound, 
Woulds't leave thy life's song spoil upon the 

strand? 



31 



TO LIFE— 

From every mystic pathway 
The gifted and the great, 
Pressed o'er the bars of Silence, 
Have loosed their tongues for Death; 
But thy gold and purple glamour, 
In the dreaming Heart's estate, 
Through weeping and through laughter 
I have seen with bated breath. 



32 



A SONG OF THE WIND 

When robins wing o'er the leagues of spring, 

And daffodils arise, 
W T hen the golden light breaks the winter's night, 

Shall we hearken the wind that sighs? 
The far sky is blue the whole day through, 

No cloud o'er the hilltop lies, 
New green has sway o'er the cold brown clay, 

But the warm wind sighs and sighs. 

When wheat is astir and brown larks whirr 

From fields to left and right. 
When light song flows in the apple close, 

Shall we hear swift wings in flight? 
The violets rise but the warm wind sighs, 

The wind that is a wing for song, 
It comes and goes and a yearning knows 

The wind that sighs day long. 



33 



EARTH-BOUND 

Today is beauty's own, 
Her breath is on the grass, 

Here have her flower wings flown, 
Unresting wings that pass. 

Softly the light winds blow 
Over the wheat and grass, 

Along the melic way 

White daisies lift and mass. 

The gold wheat glides away 
To meet the silver grass, 

They greet as lovers may, 
Gold wheat and silver grass. 

The day is a golden close 
Bound by a drowsy mist, 

And I see not beyond the rose 
For this veiling amethyst. 

Man asks e'en bent in prayer 
If after life's as bright, 

Breathes rapture and despair 
Longing for clearer light. 

This golden mist would seem 
What beauty in her might 

Has gathered of human dream 
For crying heart's delight. 



34 



Softly the light winds blow 

Over my soul that saith, 
'Thank God for gold life bound 

By this sweet blue air of breath." 



35 



GUARDIAN ANGELS 

He hath given His angels charge over thee, 

Life, that thy path be fair, 
'Pray, who may the guardian angels be?" 

Faith names them Work and Prayer. 



ARBUTUS 

How like some precious little rhyme 

Upturned where men gray tomes revise, 

O'er winter-withered paths of time 
Its breath of fragrance flies. 



37 



THE BLUEBIRD'S SONG 

Hark! upon the air 

And drifting down to me, 
A trill divine, the violin's note 

In the song of eternity. 

And down the apple lanes 
That blossom bridges span, 
This clear note rings to stir 
The flagging hope of man. 



PAIN 

When Life would hold her henchmen safe, 
Gold-barred with fete and jest, 

Time opes the door with his skeleton key 
And steals their treasure, zest. 



YULE THOUGHT 

Peace is the glowing candle 

Christ sets on Life's white board tonight, 
All men He hath invited 

To feast beneath its light. 



40 



A WINTER VIEW 

Thin as a web a silken mist doth poise 
On silvern air not warm nor overcold, 

And golden frost stars sparkle like true joys 
Far o'er the rime's encompassing freehold. 

Phantasmally at portal of a cloud 

The silence stirs at each footfall of sound — 

An axstroke in the deep wood singing loud, 
Snapped icicles falling on the frozen ground. 

Pensive against the low horizon line 

Stand the fair cedars veiled in mystic gray, 

Silent as nuns with thought of things divine, 
Before the vast white altar of the day. 



41 



ECHO 

As daily from some mount of mind 
Forbidden knowledge man would find, 
Though clear words quickly reach his ears 
His uttered speech alone he hears: 

It is as on this wooded height 
When sound of silence seeks new light 
On mysteries dark, though answers ring, 
How futile all the parleying. 



42 



SUMMER NOON 

The white sun waits midway the sky 

Over the land of noon, 
From the tall tree no murmuring sigh 
Falls, or light wind tune, 
The wide fields pale and swoon 

With heat of noon; 
The long, cool shadows shrink 

Beneath the light of noon, 
Now, to the pond's bright brink 
The tired team hastes, to drink 

The rest of summer noon. 



43 



THE WIDE FIELDS THRILL— 

The wide fields thrill with light and scented haze, 
Sweet gum and shrub spice all the woodland ways ; 
How fair again the world around us seems, 
How fair the world, my heart throbs thick with 

dreams, 
Dreams that would voice what no tongue ever 

said 
Of loved earth's trance — the roses rambling red, 
The warm gold trembling on the path I tread — 
White locust bloom's a cloud within my reach, 
White locust bloom doth silence me of speech. 



44 



AH! CHRIST, COULD LIFE BUT SEE— 

Ah! Christ, could Life but see 
The broad way built by Thee, 
All hand in hand might pass 
To the Far Land's softer grass 
By Thy span of charity. 



45 



ON FINDING A MOCCASIN FLOWER 
IN THE PINEWOOD 

Far in a Pineland close, 
Deep in the quiet dim, 
Frailer than fair wood-rose 

What is thy whim? 
What calleth thee 
Out of the laughing light 
Into the Pineland's night? 

O! dream heart, 
In a world apart, 
Frailer than fair wood-rose 
Flower of the soul's close 
Blown in the spirit's dim, 
What is thy whim? 



VILLANELLE OF SPRING 

Come, Heart, the carols ring 
Where apple boughs are white, 
This way is merry Spring! 

We'll greet the blossoming, 
The new green and the light, 
Come, Heart, the carols ring! 

The open lanes we sing 
Dogwood and violets dight, 
This way is merry Spring! 

Give dull complaint swift wing 
Into the lull of light, 
Come, Heart, go wandering! 

A lilac hour we cling 

To white boughs of delight, 

This way is merry Spring! 

Time glooms with opened wing 
All but Hope's blossoms bright, 
This way is merry Spring! 



47 



CONVOLVULUS 

Its fair pink blooms and tender bines 

The gray fence posts enshroud, 

Its purple mass upon the grass 

Is rich as lustered cloud; 

Some subtle pleasure, deep and sweet, 

Falls on me in this place, 

E'en as a wearied throng 

Hath thought of song, 

Glimpsing a maiden's idle grace. 



48 



HEARTS FIELD 

White flowers of thought here droop with sor- 
row's dew, 
A little stream of laughter twinkles through, 
Dreams overhead pass in immortal flight — 
Gray doves winging in the quiet light. 



49 



WELLS 

When crystal springs on land run dry, 
Clouds pass with no showers fraught, 

Bright water from earth's mystic deeps 
To parching lips is brought. 

That sparkling song may ever leap 
When springs of dream are naught, 

Into the well of silence deep 

Speech sinks a shaft of thought. 



50 



VIOLETS 

Beneath the sod a potter lone 
Did toil the winter through, 

That man in May might quaff delight 
From little cups of blue. 



51 



DREAMS 

Dreams are petals of a rose 

Grown afar, 
Mood and Thought in Mystery's close 

Its gardeners are. 



5i 



SOLITUDE 

For Thought and Silence wed 
'Tis Eden's garden old, 

As doves Speech here is fed 
With Fancy's crumbs of gold. 



53 



THE LAPIDARY 

Earth s generations come and go 

With sighs and tears and laughters light, 

Passing down the streets of Time, 

These opals, pearls and diamonds bright 

They bring unto the Singer's door, 

Who there, intent, above the strife, 

Resets these heirlooms in our House of Life. 



54 



" To barter a song for gold is loss, 

For the song is gold and the gold is dross. 

Who hath the gold, let him bear his cross. 

To sound the harp for a lasting name 
Is to sell one's love to a life of shame, 
Art is eternal, but what is fame?" 



'' 



JEP 29 1913 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

linn 

018 360 383 8 




